Portals of Prayer for the New Year

from the January 2009 “Herald”

What a great way to start the new year! Forget your typical resolutions, and just pick up this little Portals of Prayer booklet once a day. A copy is being sent to every household in the congregation for 2009.

The beauty of this devotional is that you can use it a little or a lot, because the name Portals of Prayer is very accurate: It is a daily “portal,” or gateway. It’s easy to do the minimum, which is to read each day’s Bible verse (printed at the top of the page), followed by the brief devotion and short prayer. But if you want to step through the portal, you can do more: There is a suggested reading that you can look up in your Bible, perhaps a few paragraphs long. There are additional prayers given for each day of the week and for special needs and observances. There’s even a brief order of service that could be used for a family or small-group devotion.

Don’t feel that you have to use every resource every day, but these resources are there when you need them. If you keep the booklet within easy reach in a common area of your home, then you can easily keep up with the rest of the members of our congregation, who will be going through this booklet together in 2009. (It is a quarterly publication, so you’ll receive a new issue every three months.) Expect to hear references to the devotions in sermons and Bible studies to reinforce the themes and to underscore that we are doing this together; it will be a common, shared experience.

Expect also to have a renewed and increased appreciation for the Word of God, especially if this is your first foray into daily devotions. A common saying for church signs goes, “Seven days without prayer makes one weak.” Overly punny, perhaps, but it’s a good thought. Instead of going Sunday to Sunday, enter the portals of prayer and the Word of God on a daily basis, and have a great 2009!

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On the Web. These two web sites will give the current day's devotion only; there is no way to browse past or future devotions.

• Portals of Prayer (text)
• Portals of Prayer (audio)